Storm

A storm is any disturbed state of an environment or astronomical body's atmosphere especially affecting its surface, and strongly implying severe weather. It may be marked by significant disruptions to normal conditions such as strong wind, hail, thunder and lightning (a thunderstorm), heavy precipitation (snowstorm, rainstorm), heavy freezing rain (ice storm), strong winds (tropical cyclone, windstorm), or wind transporting some substance through the atmosphere as in a dust storm, blizzard, sandstorm, etc.

Storms generally lead to negative impacts on lives and property such as storm surge, heavy rain or snow (causing flooding or road impassibility), lightning, wildfires, and vertical wind shear; however, systems with significant rainfall can alleviate drought in places they move through. Heavy snowfall can allow special recreational activities to take place which would not be possible otherwise, such as skiing and snowmobiling.

The English word comes from Proto-Germanic *sturmaz meaning "noise, tumult".

Storm (1999 film)

Storm is a 1999 American science fiction thriller film starring Luke Perry and Martin Sheen. The story and screenplay were written by Harris Done. The story talks about the secret weather control experiment which goes awry.

Plot

The film begins on 23 August 1992 with the top-secret weather experiment led by Air Force General James Roberts (Martin Sheen) off the coast of Florida. The team uses a specially modified cargo plane to launch a special generator into the developing storm to enhance its power. As the plane is destroyed by a lightning strike, the control of the experiment is lost and within a few hours the storm develops into the hurricane Andrew which devastates Miami. The details about the experiments are buried after the disaster.

The story then moves to 1999 where Dr. Ron Young (Luke Perry) and his assistant Dr. Brian Newmeyer perform the experiment designed to steer the path of the storm with the generator towed by a small airplane. While the experiment is successful, Dr. Young's flight license is revoked because of the airspace violation which nearly causes the accident. His boss has enough of the risky experiments and decides to fire both Dr. Young and Dr. Newmeyer.

Transformers (toy line)

The Transformers (トランスフォーマー, Toransufomā) is a line of toys produced by the Japanese company Takara (now known as Takara Tomy) and American toy company Hasbro. The Transformers toyline was created from toy molds mostly produced by Japanese company Takara in the toylines Diaclone and Microman. Other toy molds from other companies such as Bandai were used as well. In 1984, Hasbro bought the distribution rights to the molds and rebranded them as the Transformers for distribution in North America. Hasbro would go on to buy the entire toy line from Takara, giving them sole ownership of the Transformers toy-line, branding rights, and copyrights, while in exchange, Takara was given the rights to produce the toys and the rights to distribute them in the Japanese market. The premise behind the Transformers toyline is that an individual toy's parts can be shifted about to change it from a vehicle, a device, or an animal, to a robot action figure and back again. The taglines "More Than Meets The Eye" and "Robots In Disguise" reflect this ability.

Lifehouse Chronicles

Lifehouse Chronicles is a box set released in 2000 by Pete Townshend with the focus on the box being the formerly "abandoned" Lifehouse rock opera. The set contains song demos by Pete Townshend; including solo versions of "Baba O'Riley", "Won't Get Fooled Again", and "Who Are You", and the Lifehouse Radio Program. The box set release was followed by two Sadler's Wells Lifehouse concerts and the release of a live CD and video/DVD called respectively Pete Townshend Live: Sadler's Wells 2000 and Pete Townshend – Music from Lifehouse.

Lifehouse: the concept

The set collects songs and other compositions relating to Lifehouse, a musical concept developed by Townshend in 1970 as a followup to The Who's highly successful rock opera, Tommy. Rooted heavily in the teachings of Townshend's spiritual mentor Meher Baba as well as in science fiction literature, Lifehouse was meant to explore the idea that music is the fundamental basis of all life – that every human being on Earth has a unique musical melody that "describes" them, and only them, perfectly. When the unique songs of enough people are played in unison, the result would be a single harmonic note – the One Note – akin to the quintessence sought by ancient alchemists. Lifehouse was to be a true multimedia project: a double LP rock opera, a motion picture, and an interactive concert experience.